Chapter 61
Hell Pass
I sat there with my hands between my knees and looked at the sack full of coins and stolen Regalia sitting in the dirt between us. The firelight from the caravan's remaining cook-pit caught the edge of a silver ring poking through the fabric.
I picked the bundle up. Weighed it in my hand, maybe seven pounds.
"It's not just about the money."
"What is it then? Some genius plan you forgot to mention to the person sleeping three feet from you every night?"
"We're walking into Valdris with nothing; we have no papers, no guild affiliations, no contacts. Two ex-convicts from the Hearthlands with Sacred Origins instead of whatever the fuck these dragoons have."
"So you've been looting the caravan."
"I've been taking what we need to survive." I held up the bundle. "Every coin in here is going toward getting us set up in Valdris. The Regalia I'll sell or absorb, depending on what they are. And the rest—" I let out a breath. "The rest is for a plan I'm still working on."
"That you can't tell me about."
I met her eyes. The magenta burned hot. She was pissed, and she had the right. I'd been scheming around her for days, keeping her in the dark while I played my little game.
"The acting, the 'poor wanderers' bit, the whole routine we've been doing since we joined the caravan. That's all part of it. That's what I need them to see."
I held her gaze. Zo's arms stayed crossed, but the grinding in her jaw slowed. She was listening.
"I can't tell you everything yet, not because I don't trust you but because some of this is still forming, and if I get it wrong, I don't want it landing on you. But I need you to trust that there's a reason for the act. Can you do that?"
"...if you're lying to me, I'll break both your arms before I leave."
"That's fair."
She grabbed the bundle, turned, and walked back toward the fire without another word, her shoulders stiff with agitation.
That went about as well as it could have.
We'd have to go through the three-headed baboon’s mountain pass tomorrow. There was no other way. Jacko the caravan master had confirmed as much during his council with the Dragoon and the remaining mercenaries. Forward, through the alpha's territory.
I closed my eyes and sent a thin worm through the darkness. It burrowed in silence, threading through the ground. And maybe two hundred yards up the trail, there were eight monkeys hiding in the cliff face.
The alpha had set sentries.
I pulled my worm back and opened my eyes.
The caravan had maybe fourteen fighters left, counting Zo and the Dragoon.
The Golden Rose guards didn't count; they hadn't moved from their posts since the journey started, and I doubted they'd move now.
Their job was the wagon and the princess inside it. Everything else could burn.
Which gave me an idea. One I'd been turning over since the alpha first showed itself.
The Golden Rose wagon was the prize. Whoever was inside it—and by now I was damn near certain it was a merchant princess—represented a connection to one of the most powerful merchant organizations on the continent.
The kind of organization that could open doors in Valdris that no amount of stolen coin would buy.
I needed a different way in. I needed to be useful. I needed to be necessary.
And the three-headed baboon was going to give me that.
◆◆◆
We hitched the ox-beasts in silence, nobody wanting to talk about the meat grinder we were about to march into.
Jacko signaled the advance.
I walked beside my wagon with my worm-blade ready. Zo was ten feet ahead, her axe already out, her head on a swivel. The veins in her arms were brighter this morning.
The Golden Rose wagon rolled in the center, its fire-treated canvas still spotless despite all of the mountain warfare. The two guards walked beside it, one on each side.
Dozens of monkeys started to appear on the cliff. They began hurling stones the size of fists down onto the caravan. The mercenaries raised their shields and kept moving.
The Dragoon didn't waste energy on them.
I sent three thin worms up through the cracks in the rock wall, toward where the alpha had perched before. The worms climbed in silence, invisible in the stone.
An airblast slammed into the mercenaries, throwing two of them off the trail entirely. They disappeared over the cliff edge just as the howlers joined the battle
The Dragoon surged forward. His blade took one howler's head clean off, and he kicked the body into a second, tangling them. The remaining two howlers scattered up the rock face, but he chased one down and opened it from hip to throat before it got ten feet.
We kept moving.
“Push, push, keep the wagons moving!” Jacko screamed.
A stone smashed through a wagon driver's head, sending brain matter and bone fragments onto the canvas behind him. A mercenary grabbed the reins and kicked his limp body off the bench and onto the road.
Then the fire monkeys came, and the trail turned to hell.
Eight of them. Their red faces and rippling fur perched on rocks on both sides of the trail, as if they'd been waiting there all night. They were the ones I had seen with my worms.
They spewed liquid fire in arcs, coating the wagons. The canvas caught immediately. The mercenaries broke formation, scrambling away from the burning wagons. An ox-beast screamed and collapsed in its harness with fire eating through its thick hide.
I pointed at the Golden Rose wagon. "Zo, they're going for it."
The two Golden Rose guards moved—for the first time in all of this carnage—stepping forward and drawing their blades. They swatted gobs of liquid fire out of the air with their blades.
Then the mountain shook.
The alpha dropped from somewhere above—fifteen feet of white fur and three howling heads—and landed on the trail between the Dragoon and the rest of the caravan. The impact cratered the rock shelf and sent a shockwave that knocked me sideways into the wagon wheel.